It was some time before any more of them were to be seen, but at last, in twos and threes, other soldiers appeared, running hurriedly, and looking quickly about them, as if they expected to be shot down.  This time they were men of many corps, whose uniforms we could almost make out at this short distance, and as they ran many of them threw off their tunics and loosened their leggings.  This meant open and flagrant desertion.  Just as I was about to give the order to fire a volley, a dense mass of men, in close formation, came out of a great building leaning up against the pink Palace walls and started marching rapidly towards us.  Then as soon as they reached a cross-road five hundred yards away, they bent quickly due north and disappeared in a cloud of dust.  What did this fleeing to the north of the city and this ominous quiet mean?  What in the name of all that is extraordinary was happening to cause these strange doings?

There was little time for reflection, however, for like some theatre of the gods new scenes began to unroll.  Soon other bodies of troops appeared and disappeared, always heading away there towards the north, always marching rapidly with hurried looks cast around them.  Now safe in the knowledge that a general retreat was taking place from this quarter, we started volleying savagely.  Bunched together in twos and threes, the enemy offered an easy mark, and with a callousness born of long privations we dropped at least fifteen or twenty men in very few minutes.  Lying flat on the ground our angles soon grew fixed on to our rifle-sights, and at one house-corner four hundred yards away, six times I made the same shot and dropped a deserter.  But this heavy firing must have attracted attention, for lead began to pelt at us from hidden places, and soon this little action became very warm.  It was a curious experience....

It was now three in the afternoon, and, excepting for this unexplained movement of Chinese troops, we had not discovered any sign of our relief.  Our volleying was becoming nonsensical, for having picked up numbers of Chinese Mauser cartridges, we amused ourselves firing away almost all the ammunition we carried.  This could not continue indefinitely.  So once more I drew my men together, and once again we scurried away, changing our direction to due east towards the great Ha-ta Gate.  We were becoming callous, now that we knew there was small possibility of our being cut off, and half a mile from home meant nothing to us.

We had almost reached the Ha-ta great street, and were beginning to feel that by some strange chance we had half the city to ourselves, when a furious galloping gave us a timely signal, and made us shrink into a native house, the doorway of which had been beaten in by marauders.  We were just in time, for no sooner had we disappeared than a body of Manchu cavalry came rapidly past, flogging their ponies, and shouting excitedly to one another as they passed.